When I took chemistry in high school we were working with the bunsen burners and wire and chemicals one day. The point was to stick the wire in an unknown chemical then put it in the flame and see what color it turned to determine the chemical. The teacher specifically told us NOT to poke ourselves with the wire after putting it in the flame.

Guess what I did.

My lab partner and I were also really good friends and we would stand there and argue the whole way through the lab. Good times.

<------ The TVM is going on vacation!

Cats were once worshiped in Egypt. They have never forgotten this.

"They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach." -- Joe Paterno

In my chemistry class last year, we did a junk food lab. We had to burn three types of junk food in a self-made calorimeter and then determine the calorie content using some equation I don't even remember now and never will again. Anyway, one of the foods my friends and I chose was cheese puffs. After about twenty seconds of burning normally, the flames flared up to about a foot in the air. That was scary...

Especially since the guys right next to us were flicking matches to make them catch on fire in the air.

Anyway, my birthday's tomorrow and I finally figured out what to do. We're going to a surprisingly not-so-cheesy medieval times joust on Saturday.

Evenstar_Elfstone wrote:Anyway, my birthday's tomorrow and I finally figured out what to do. We're going to a surprisingly not-so-cheesy medieval times joust on Saturday.

Happy birthday!

My choir director in high school went to a joust once, and there was some guy running around screaming "There will be blood in the streets tonights!" the whole time. After that, any time we really messed something up he'd yell that at us.

I don't move back to school till Saturday. I can't wait. I'm going to have my smallest room ever this year! (I can't remember if I've told you all how much I love having a tiny bedroom? I'm really not being sarcastic either. It feels comfortable to me. ) And no roommate. Which is the best part. :happydance: Elanor, since you're helping the freshmen out, does that mean you're an RA (or CA or whatever they call them there? We've changed the name like four times since I've been at Kenyon so I don't even know anymore ). Do you get your own room?

*pets roommate-less room*

My suitemate and I also get a little common room, which is going to be really neat.

Unfortunately the only way we could pull off these good rooms and still live up north (near my suitemate's boyfriend, my boyfriend, and our really good friend Rick) was to live in the most old, gross, and badly-kept up dorm on campus, which is also supposedly badly haunted (my suitemate has the haunted room. ). Also, only sophomores usually live there, so we're probably not going to be with anyone we know really.

I don't remember if I told you guys either that Sil and Tim and I went to the Renaissance festival on Saturday! It was really fun. Sil and I were Elizabethan ladies as usual, and Tim was a pirate, completely ruining my spotless reputation. :'(

(For those who don't know, I'm the one on the far left, in the dark blue. )

I don't have any really exciting chemistry stories. The most exciting thing that happened to me was... well, in high school, I took advanced chemistry, and we had a different teacher for class and for lab. Our lab teacher was a little scatterbrained. One day she gave us the wrong instructions on what to do. Then she told us to inhale the gas we were giving off and try to see if we could smell anything. We thought that was a little odd from the instructions we were given, but we figured hey, she's the teacher. My lab partner and I were the first ones done and tried for ten minutes to smell the gas, but we couldn't smell a thing. Finally the mix-up got sorted out and it turned out we had been inhaling gaseous hydrochloric acid for ten minutes. We both had absolutely splitting headaches starting about half an hour later. Worst headache I've ever had in my life.

Then there was the time that I ALMOST spilled 18 molar sulfuric acid on Alexa... but I didn't!!!! :D:D:P

Alex, I'm sorry to hear about the difficulties with that girl. I can't imagine how hard that must be. I'm glad it worked out in the end though!

Next time just say "no, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend". Seems to work with getting rid of members of the opposite sex for me............. :P

I imagine that "No, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend" would clear things up real fast.

Luthy, what an idiot! I'm glad it wasn't some really poisonous fumes she had you snorting.

That reminds me of when my dad let us taste some 12M HCl in class once. Just a tiny little amount, but it was like concentrating an entire Warhead, or whatever those super super sour candies are called, into a single five-second experience.

Last question: What would have been a great resource for you while you were at Wofford?

Me: Caffeine pill dispensers in all major study areas. Obviously you would want some way to make sure that they couldn't be abused, but since that would be impossible, just put a "don't take too many or you'll die" message on the box and you'd be OK.

When I was taking Methods of Environmental Science, we had to wash out all our test tubes with nitric acid for some experiment we were doing, at various points in the lab. Somehow, and to this day, I don't understand how, I kept missing the testtube with the washbottle and squirting weak nitric acid up the sleeve of my labcoat. IIt didn't burn me, but washing my arm off all the time was getting a little tiresome.

ElanorTheHobbit wrote:Ugluk, you aren't rethinking your job at the Harley store, are you?

No. Although I'll be glad when I get off grunt work, though. I'm on my way, though. I put together a $40,000 Harley by myself today, only pausing to ask Nate a couple of questions about the best way to do some things. And it turns out that Nate's leaving, which means that I'll pretty much be in charge of the tech crew + wash bay for the entire winter. In fact, I will be the tech crew for most of the winter.

Luthy wrote:Next time just say "no, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend". Seems to work with getting rid of members of the opposite sex for me

Pffft. It needs to be, "I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend. He's a part-time football player and bouncer at a bar. He gets out of prison tomorrow...."

So I finally got all my classes and work schedule set up, and I'm pretty sure I won't be getting much sleep this year. I really wish I had a car, or even a bike that I could get around in. I didn't have to go to any more sessions or orientations today, so I decided to walk toward town and see how long it would take me. It took about 15 minutes to get to where anything is, which isn't terribly bad, but the places I really want to go to (Panera, Barnes & Noble, etc.), are much farther away, and there's no way I would have time to walk there unless it was at night on the weekends. Plus my parents don't want me walking around at night, and we aren't allowed to bring weapons to school, so it's not like I can carry one of those around either. I'm still trying to convince my parents to get me a taser though. *shifty eyes*

IrisBrandybuck wrote:So, Ivy, How is your English comes from Latin friend?

Apparently yesterday he freaked out and posted a bunch of nasty things about me. I didn't see them, and the mods deleted them (Along with one of my posts, which wasn't nasty. Skiffy mods don't tell you why they remove things, so it's little annoying.

He has this way of twisting things he reads to fit his wacky theories. For example:

An article I posted (written by the Prinicpal Etymologist of the Oxford Dictionary) said:

The Scandinavian Settlements

The next invaders were the Norsemen. From the middle of the ninth century large numbers of Norse invaders settled in Britain, particularly in northern and eastern areas, and in the eleventh century the whole of England had a Danish king, Canute. The distinct North Germanic speech of the Norsemen had great influence on English, most obviously seen in the words that English has borrowed from this source. These include some very basic words such as take and even grammatical words such as they. The common Germanic base of the two languages meant that there were still many similarities between Old English and the language of the invaders. Some words, for example give perhaps show a kind of hybridization with some spellings going back to Old English and others being Norse in origin.

However, the resemblances between the two languages are so great that in many cases it is impossible to be sure of the exact ancestry of a particular word or spelling.

He said:

Ouch. So this really puts a dagger in your back. The one source you thought would prove that there was a Germanic Base -- and he instantly disagrees with himself. Let me break it down for you:

First he talks about a handful of words, stating they are Germanic. The term Germanic being improperly used (Frisian would be more correct since German is a Latin Slur describing anyone north of Rome).

And one minor correction: Take - is from the old gothic word Tekan (predating the norse use). Origin is Not Norse.

Beyond those two words, he then says: "oh my well, ok I kinda lied, you see we're not really sure from where the "germanic base" came. Because there are so many commonalities prior to the invasion which I originally said brought over these commonalities, and then there are commonalities that happened before the fall of the roman empire, that we just aren't sure if they're really german or not."

Yeah, that's what the article said.

The guy I'm arguing with is also wrong on the origin of the word "take". It entered Old English from Old Norse, but it originated in a Proto-Germanic word which was the parent of words in both Old Norse and Gothic.

No matter how many times it is pointed out to him that Gothic is simply an extinct language of the East Germanic branch, he insists on calling the whole Germanic family of languages"Gothic". He also insists that Gothic was the forerunner of all the Germanic languages. I've posted 5 different diagrams of the Indo-European Language Family that all illustrate what I am saying. He hasn't responded to one of them.

I made one final post in response to him, and from now on, I and a fair number of the regular posters are just ignoring him.

Oh, and now he's insisted that he had "8 Years of study" and that he has worked for his father's private Archaeology firm for the past 15 years.

When this debate became he was basing it on something he had seen on the History channel.

Now he claims to be some sort of expert who knows better than the Oxford Dictionary. Far be it from me to diagnose someone with anything, let alone online, but I suspect he might have a Personality Disorder. He seems to be a pathological liar with a narcissitic personality. The moment you challenge him to produce his sources, he goes ballistic. He seems to think that everyone should just take his word for it.

Ivvy: If I were his professor, I'd fail him and get him kicked out of the gene pool. *nods*

Elfy: (I checked and got the right one this time!) I think a bike would be a whole lot cheaper than a taser...and less likely to get you into trouble. You're a resourceful girl, though, I'm sure you can create your own. *pats on head*

Good luck with your classes.

<------ The TVM is going on vacation!

Cats were once worshiped in Egypt. They have never forgotten this.

"They ask me what I'd like written about me when I'm gone. I hope they write I made Penn State a better place, not just that I was a good football coach." -- Joe Paterno

However, congratulations, Luthy, on your roommate-less room and for Elfy and her non-vehicle-ness.

*never did anything remotely dangerous in chem lab* My entire chemistry experience was self-study, and being entirely too paranoid of being accidentally poisoned by toxic chemicals, I avoided all of the ones that called for HCl and lye. Go me.

Luthy- How was the renn faire? My Boyfriend and I are thinking about going soon. I guess we missed you though. I think I"m going to wear either my blood red arwen dress or my bar wench dress depending on the heat. My boyfriend is going to wear his kilt. It should be fun!

Ivvy, watched the video. My oh my, simply amazing, he gets right into you, heart rending, then that smile at the end, glorious.

Everyone take care as you head back to you place of learning. Wish you all a successful year.

Well as you know, I have stated several times, about needing rain here. 7 years of drought, has devasted the farming industry, dried up creeks, small dams and lowered the big dams, like Wivenhoe to dangerously low levels (16%). On Saturday night, it started to rain, we have had gale force winds and severe storm warnings on the coast. Since the weekend, we have had showers and some heavier rain, but yesterday at 6.30pm, it started to absolutely pour down, when I went to bed at 3.30 am, it hadn't eased at all and I got up at 7am and it was still raining.

Now is 9.30am my time, and I have been watching the news. Flash flooding, record rainfalls, One area north of here had over 600mm in 20 hours. Others over 300mm. So if you could see me now, you would not wonder, about the silly grin on my face. I am not saying that the drought is over, because for that, we need a huge flooding rain, but maybe the end is near.

IrisBrandybuck wrote:Elfy: (I checked and got the right one this time!) I think a bike would be a whole lot cheaper than a taser...and less likely to get you into trouble. You're a resourceful girl, though, I'm sure you can create your own. *pats on head*

Um, not quite. Ugluk's taser cost $30, and there are plenty of cheaper ones. The cheapest bike I could find at Wal-Mart was $53. Also, we're not allowed to keep bikes in our dorms, and tasers are are small, so the chances of someone finding out about it would be very slim. And like you said, I'm a resourceful girl, so if they did happen to find out about it I could tell them that I only have it to keep me safe when I'm out riding my bike/walking around town all alone. Which would be true.

Agh!!! So yesterday I ordered something off of Amazon.com. When I went to check on the order today I was rather puzzled to see the order was sent to Michigan

Like a complete dimbulb I totally forgot to even think to check to see that I had changed the shipping address to my addy here in NC Called them up and found out that basically since UPS couldn't deliver the package it will get sent back to Amazon. I'll get my money back but i'll have to go back and reorder what I wanted to get. <kicks self> if I keep this up any day now the University is going to come and reposess my degree.

My dog, Merry, had a rough night last night. She went blind a little over a month ago (maybe before that...) after eating some rat poison. Well last night, about four o'clock, everyone was asleep, but something woke my mom up. She said it sounded like hysterical crying or screaming. She didn't know what it was at first, but it sounded like it was coming from the backyard. She went downstairs and found our other dog, Ceily, waiting just inside the dog door, and she seemed upset about something. Turns out, Merry had gone outside and gotten herself trapped behind a chair, the hose, and a tub of chlorine. She wasn't completely blocked, but she couldn't find her way out to get inside. So my mom brought her inside and tried to calm her down, but she was panting and upset the rest of the night. When my mom told me all this, my heart just broke. Merry used to be the most upbeat, bounciest, happiest dog in the world. Now she's always scared and mopey. The worst part of it all is that she doesn't even understand what's happening to her. I feel so bad for her, I wish there was something I could do for her, but there really isn't.

In other news, school starts on Monday and I haven't finished my AP project yet. Oh, boy.

Few days ago I got an IM from a friend who moved away awhile ago telling me about a friend of hers who needs someone to go work with him in the desert for mucho $. Very long story short, I'll be leaving on Tuesday morning to drive down to Reno, Nevada to put up barbed-wire fences around abandoned mine shafts for a gold-mining company. Yeah. And I'll be staying in a hotel, for free, with wireless (so I need people to entertain me in the evenings) and making $3000 working for twenty straight days. Plus I have a $700 expense account for food and whatever money I have left over from that I get to keep as well. Go me.

Work sucked today. There were a few decent parts but most of it was just moving large and heavy things around and it was 98 degrees outside and I'm coming down with something.

Yesterday I kept getting dehydrated and I was very sleepy so I kept buying sodas and drinking them to stay awake and drinking water to stay hydrated. And then I went to a party and drank more soda. At the end I tallied it all up and figured out that I'd drunk 48 ounces of Coke, 72 ounces of Mountain Dew, and about 85 ounces of water. At least. The water one sounds a little low.

Anyway, so then today, after drama practice (which went rather badly. I got majorly pissed off at several (read: all) of our leaders because they acted like complete *TOS violations* to me after I told them that I was going to be gone for 20 days. I'm missing a grand total of one performance and I've given them a full two weeks notice and offered to personally train someone in my role and I've been at more practices and performances this entire year than ANY OTHER PERSON including stepping up and learning someone else's parts because they weren't there and I'm really mad about that) we got home and I went to get some food.

Loth, my sister (neck injury one) was downstairs in the basement. And then she walked upstairs to her room, which is close to the kitchen. So as I am collecting food, and I hear her say my name, and I think she's still downstairs because I didn't see her come up. Plus it sounded that way.

"[Ugluk]," she says, in a very strange voice, "my head feels really weird."

"Why don't you sit down?" I start to suggest, but I'd only got the word "why" out when there's a loud WHAM from her room. I go into her room to investigate and find her lying unconscious on the floor.

Good times.

So, I invited my mom to come up from the basement, bent down, pulled up an eyelid to check her pupils, and made sure she was still breathing. She woke up a few seconds later and is moving around fine. However, there was still plenty of time for Fred and I to make plenty of humorous comments while she was lying on the floor.

Few days ago I got an IM from a friend who moved away awhile ago telling me about a friend of hers who needs someone to go work with him in the desert for mucho $. Very long story short, I'll be leaving on Tuesday morning to drive down to Reno, Nevada to put up barbed-wire fences around abandoned mine shafts for a gold-mining company. Yeah. And I'll be staying in a hotel, for free, with wireless (so I need people to entertain me in the evenings) and making $3000 working for twenty straight days. Plus I have a $700 expense account for food and whatever money I have left over from that I get to keep as well. Go me.

Work sucked today. There were a few decent parts but most of it was just moving large and heavy things around and it was 98 degrees outside and I'm coming down with something.

Um, your special temp job sounds like it's going to be mostly moving heavy things in the heat as well.